


Legacy

by Trixxster103



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Gen, Hope, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-21
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-11-03 02:34:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10957866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trixxster103/pseuds/Trixxster103
Summary: When everything is over, when the worst has happened, there's still one thing left in Pandora's Box. Hope.





	Legacy

There was no Gem equivalent word for hope. Even the concept was foreign, it simply didn’t exist. There was no hope on Homeworld, only facts. A pearl was a pearl and would never be more. To think otherwise was incomprehensible. Pearl knew this, and accepted it as fact, even despite her own contrary life story. Rose Quartz had been unexpected but inevitable, sweeping Pearl from the horror of her old life into a new one on Earth. 

Hope meant expectations, desire and trust mixing together, even despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Pearl learned about it in Greece. While she did not enjoy humans, they dominated everything they touched, and their stories permeated every inch of their lives. Their gods were fascinating, and many had claimed Pearl herself to be their favored goddess and for a while she went by many names, although it was not nearly as many as had claimed Rose their sovereign saint. The first time she heard the story of Pandora – a dangerously curious child, in Pearl’s opinion (thank goodness gems couldn’t have them) – she’d scoffed. To think that only Good existed in the world before a child opened a box and then that Evil was released, was naïve beyond measure. Evil and Good were not so separable, Pearl had seen them, swirling and mixing together all of her long life.

It annoyed her that they had forgotten the thousand year war she had fought – _for them_ – in Rose’s name and flag. But the last part of the story annoyed her further. She bristled, offended and disdainful, at the concept of Hope. Hope against Evil, hope for Good, as if gods actually rained boons down from the sky and long suffering slaves would be freed if only they hoped enough. The conviction that good things might still come their way against all odds burned a sickly hole in Pearl and she thought she might dislike them even more. Hope was dangerous and ugly, telling people that despite the facts, despite logic maybe the world wouldn’t be so horrible a place, that maybe the rain would come to their crops, despite living in a desert, that maybe the person they loved would finally look at them the same way – Pearl always stomped away from the story with a chip on her shoulder and a grudge in her heart. It was just a way for humans to justify their short, meaningless, and often miserable existences.

As decades turned to centuries turned to millennia, Pearl learned that her existence, while much longer, was no less meaningless and miserable. This sobering thought did little to sway her to the side of young Pandora and she took great, perverse pleasure in making sure that Rose never heard the story – because Rose would eat it up immediately, would love it like she loved everything else, and be swayed by its toxic charms. That’s what it was, Pearl had decided, toxic. It was merely a tool made up by humans to prevent them from falling into total despair and killing themselves from the state of their miserable circumstances. It convinced them that there was some broad, ephemeral thing that existed, that could halt the continued cycle of evil that plagued the species known as man. That believing and hoping against fact and reason could actually accomplish something. She supposed it made sense, from a continuation-of-the-species sort of view.

Garnet and Rose found out about hope at the same time, and it wasn’t until Garnet argued in its favor that Pearl was able to laugh about the needling way Rose would fawn over it, and create new stories for the humans that only fed into their belief. Rose would meddle and change the course of history for them, for their hope, and Pearl would simply grumble, jealousy and anger that she denied out of love for Rose, growing, until Garnet, with a few well-placed words of commiseration melted the heated anger out of her.

Garnet took the side of hope, but she didn’t believe in it. Garnet didn’t need hope. There was no point in wishing or _hoping_ for a better future when the shining paths of fate were laid out before her. It was always apparent if something was completely unattainable and if it wasn’t, only action would be the catalyst for it. Change was just inevitable, happening with a nudge here, or a push there. Things that happened, or were going to happen, did so at the behest of the people or gems experiencing it and actively shaping their universes.

Garnet had seen Evil, before, and during, the war, but still decided she didn’t need it. Sapphire didn’t need hope when she could see exactly how things were going to play out. And Ruby had long ago decided that she didn’t need hope if she had Sapphire, things would happen as they happened, and all they could do was be good in the moment, and not get lost hoping for a future that might be unavoidably crashing towards them anyways.

Amethyst didn’t learn about hope for a very long time. But when she did she surprised everyone by taking the same opinion as Pearl: hope was stupid, and humans were stupid for having it. Pearl simply held her head a little higher, pursed her lips smugly and walked off, content to have someone unequivocally agree with her. It hurt Rose to hear it, but she simply decided to let her friends make their own choices. She allowed herself to hope that maybe one day they would understand it the way she did.

Rose was wrong. Amethyst’s opinion of hope was as fundamental as her opinion of herself. And it would not be swayed. Amethyst didn’t want hope because hope was weakness. Hope meant inaction. If one needed hope then that meant that they believed there was nothing they could do to change their circumstances. Hope meant you didn’t have control. Amethyst refused it. She wanted control.

Amethyst hadn’t seen Evil. But she had seen people. And the people that hoped were the ones that had given up. The fun ones – the reckless ones, Pearl would call them – threw themselves bodily into life and at any challenge that came their way. Hope didn’t stunt them. They lived or died in the brief moments of activity, always reaching, grasping to take all that they could. They didn’t have the chance to hope, and that meant their short bright life had meant something.

Hope. Pearl didn’t have it, Garnet didn’t need it and Amethyst didn’t want it.

Gems did not have hope. But as Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl watched the Homeworld ship carry away their son, they claimed it as surrogate, filling in the hole he’d left. It was the only thing they could do. With no ship, no knowledge, no resources and no time, there was nothing left to them. Nothing but hope.  

**Author's Note:**

> Just a drabble I've been toying with because of the latest Stevenbomb feels. I'm not 100% happy with it, but there's enough in here that I like that it was worth posting. As always, reviews are greatly appreciated! Also yes the summary quote is from Person of Interest, a show I have lately also become obsessed with!


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